The Stench of It All

I had one of those weird memory connect strings going on in my brain today.  I keep thinking about a conversation I had with my younger sister yesterday...and I was just kind of flabbergasted by what she said.

She has been complaining for the last year about the excessive BO and foot odor her oldest daughter has (she is 9 years old).  She said that when Gabby gets home from school they have to soak her feet in tea water cuz it takes the smell out and wash the insoles of her shoes.  I told her that she should start the girl on clinical strength underarm deodorant...preferably Degree.  My Bethany had some pretty strong BO when she started puberty.  Five years later it isn't so bad anymore but I still buy her the clinical strength Degree. 

THEN my sister gets around to telling me that she has a hard time getting her girls to take baths...even though they only do it twice a week.  This is where my mouth dropped open.  AND she says that Gabby's hair is starting to look stringy.  TWICE A WEEK???  I told her that my kids have ALWAYS had a bath every day.  They have grown up with phobias about being unclean and having dirty looking hair.  I have always believed that if one smells good then that alone will cause people to be nicer to you.  Looking good is part of it...smelling good (especially if you smell like something that gives them comfort like cookies or peppermint) is a REALLY good thing.  I wear lotion that smells like vanilla sugar cookies, candy canes, honeysuckle, berries.  Who doesn't like food?  LOL

I do not know where she got the idea that kids should only bathe twice a week.  I know when we were growing up that was our mother's idea.  But she got that from living out in the country with a well.  They had to conserve their water.  By the time I was in 4th grade I started washing my hair every day and bathing way more often.  Then it turned into every day by the time I hit 5th grade.  For all my mom's phobia about things staying clean you would have thought she would have realized that we needed more than a Wednesday and Saturday night bath.  I told my lil sis that putting more deodorant on her daughter if she hadn't had a bath was like putting flowers in an onion bag.  Why let the stink pile up?  Am I the only one that thinks about this stuff?  I mean REALLY.  I told her that she was doing her daughters a disservice cuz she was deterring their ability to keep friends!  sheesh.  I can't believe I'm related to her!  My son and daughter know the value of not being malodorous...my daughter has a string of body sprays and lotions she begged off of me from our favorite place: Bath and Body Works.  My son wears axe products.  They brush their teeth twice a day.  They wear clean clothes (two changings a day...not usually necessary but...).

The niece's stinky shoes reminded me of my first fiance'.  I had bought him a pair of suede boots one Christmas.  He loved them and wore them all the time.  The problem was...they didn't exactly 'breathe'.  They got so bad that he had to start leaving them outside the house in a covered porch.  I swear they smelled like an opossum had crawled in there and died. 

He had a niece, Pammy.  Pammy did not like me.  She was one of those bully type mean girls.  She thought I was too prissy and goody-goody.  I think it was the next Christmas he took her shopping with him to 'help' pick out some clothes to give me for Christmas.  I opened up this one box and it was all I could do not to scream in horror.  She got me all right.  Let's just say the outfit looked like something Laura Ingals would wear out there in the prairie.  It was a deep jewel color with a sort of  cocoa brown accent color.  Long CORDUROY skirt with about 3 tiers of ruffles, a ruffle on the waist.  And it had a matching vest.  I just pasted a smile on my face cuz he looked so proud of that outfit.  When he told me that Pammy had helped him pick it out then it made sense.  She asked me later, with a wicked smile on her face, how I liked the outfit.  I told her it was the most unusual outfit I had ever seen and couldn't wait to wear it.  I don't think I've ever seen a smile hit the floor quite so fast.  I ended up removing one of the ruffles in order fot it to not cover my feet.  I bought some matching brown boots and found a shirt to  match and ended up wearing it quite often that winter.  I was doing my student teaching so it came in handy.  Pammy was not happy.  LOL

So...there's my thread...stinky niece...stinky boots...stinky almost niece.  LOL